VIGILANCE MUST NEVER FADE.
THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM HAS NOT DISAPPEARED.
VIGILANCE MUST NEVER FADE
Flight FZ1073: The Courage of Captain Smit Machchhar, the Resistance of the Passengers, and a Lesson the World Has No Right to Forget
INTRODUCTION
On 30 September 2026, an ordinary international passenger flight was transformed, within a matter of seconds, into a struggle between life and death.
A flydubai aircraft operating Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv was in the air when, within one of the most heavily protected spaces in modern civil aviation—the cockpit—an event unfolded that decades of increasingly sophisticated aviation-security systems had been designed to prevent.
The threat did not come from outside the aircraft.
It was already inside the cockpit.
According to an official statement by UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, the co-pilot attempted to commit an act of terrorism, attacked the captain with an emergency crash axe, and attempted to seize control of the aircraft. The investigation remains ongoing and is seeking to establish his motives and any possible connections.
This detail is fundamental.
Following the tragedy of 11 September 2001, global aviation invested enormous financial and intellectual resources in protecting cockpits against intrusion from outside. Reinforced doors, new access procedures, passenger screening, restrictions on prohibited items, surveillance systems, and multilayered security protocols were designed primarily around the assumption that a potential attacker would attempt to gain access to the cockpit.
Flight FZ1073 confronted aviation security with another terrifying question:
What happens when the potential threat is already on the other side of the reinforced door?
For precisely this reason, the incident must be understood as something far greater than an isolated criminal episode.
It is a story about terrorism.
It is a story about the insider threat.
It is a story about human courage.
It is a story about the few seconds that can separate the lives of more than a hundred human beings from catastrophe.
And finally, it is a story about why society must never allow its vigilance to fade.
I. A FLIGHT THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ORDINARY
On the morning of 30 September, a flydubai Boeing 737 MAX was operating the regular FZ1073 service from the United Arab Emirates to Israel.
The Dubai–Tel Aviv route itself had long since become part of a new political reality in the Middle East.
Following the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, direct air links acquired not merely a practical transportation function, but a symbolic significance as well.
The aircraft was carrying predominantly Israeli passengers. Various reports provide slightly different figures for the total number of people on board; until the publication of a definitive official report, it would therefore be unwise to transform a discrepancy of several individuals into an asserted fact.
The aircraft was commanded by Indian national Captain Smit Machchhar, an experienced professional pilot with more than a decade in commercial aviation. According to published biographical information, he had previously flown for SpiceJet and joined flydubai in 2022.
Beside him sat the co-pilot, an Omani national identified by media reports as Hamam (Hammam) al-Hammami.
Today, that name is known far beyond the aviation community.
But on that morning, the passengers aboard FZ1073 knew nothing of what was about to happen.
They took their seats, talked, rested, and looked through the windows.
The aircraft continued along its scheduled route.
And almost no one sitting beyond the reinforced cockpit door could have imagined that, within moments, their lives would depend upon whether a gravely wounded man could manage to unlock that door.
II. THE ATTACK FROM WITHIN
According to the UAE authorities, the co-pilot attacked the captain with an emergency crash axe kept inside the cockpit—an instrument intended for use in emergency situations.
In other words, an object designed to save human lives had allegedly been turned into a weapon.
The attack occurred in the one place where the consequences of violence can be immeasurably more devastating than those of an ordinary criminal assault.
Beyond the cockpit were human beings.
Below the aircraft was the earth.
And before the two pilots were the controls of an aircraft travelling at enormous speed and altitude.
The aircraft entered a rapid descent. According to published reports, it lost 16,625 feet of altitude in little more than thirty seconds.
The magnitude of what was happening is difficult to comprehend.
Thousands of metres of altitude disappearing within seconds.
Passengers in the cabin unaware of the cause.
The crew without a complete understanding of events.
A struggle taking place behind a locked door.
The captain gravely wounded.
And the aircraft falling.
At that moment, professional duty ceased to be an abstract concept.
It became a matter of life and death.
III. CAPTAIN SMIT MACHCHHAR
In the history of civil aviation, heroism rarely resembles its cinematic portrayal.
There is no time for lengthy speeches.
There is no time to calculate one's chances.
There are only seconds.
There is pain.
There is fear.
And there is a decision.
Captain Smit Machchhar sustained serious injuries. Nevertheless, according to his own account and reports concerning the investigation, he continued to resist.
He understood not merely what was happening to him.
He understood what lay behind him.
Passengers.
Families.
Children.
Members of the crew.
People who had entrusted their lives to those in the cockpit.
Machchhar managed to perform the action that may have become the decisive turning point of the entire incident:
he unlocked the cockpit door.
This enabled those outside to intervene.
Here we encounter the true meaning of an aircraft commander's responsibility.
He could have lost consciousness.
He could physically have become incapable of continuing the struggle.
Yet for as long as he remained able to act, he acted.
His deed cannot be measured merely by the number of lives saved.
It represents an example of professional ethics in its most extreme and demanding form.
When a person knows that his own life is under immediate threat and nevertheless continues to struggle for the lives of others, professional duty becomes an act of moral courage.
For this reason, the name of Captain Smit Machchhar deserves to be preserved in the history of civil aviation.
IV. THE DOOR OPENS
When the cockpit door was opened, the situation changed.
The threat was no longer isolated within a space accessible only to the two pilots.
Passengers and members of the crew were now able to intervene.
It was the moment when the individual courage of the captain met the collective courage of those aboard the aircraft.
Among those whose names subsequently appeared in international reports was Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayun.
According to his account, after hearing cries about the attack, he and others rushed towards the cockpit. The attacker was eventually subdued and restrained using whatever materials were available.
Hayun was not alone.
Reports also named Tzvika Manes, his wife Tali, dentist Dr. Shota Musaev, and Asaf Rajuan among those whose actions subsequently received recognition in Israel.
And here we must pause.
A passenger does not board a civilian airliner expecting that, several hours later, he may have to fight for control of a falling Boeing.
He is under no obligation to be a hero.
Yet history does not always ask a person whether he is prepared for heroism.
Sometimes it simply confronts him with a choice:
to act—or to wait.
The people aboard FZ1073 chose to act.
V. THE ISRAELI PASSENGERS
The conduct of the Israeli passengers deserves particular attention.
According to published accounts, Yaniv Hayun helped restrain the attacker and assisted in stabilising the aircraft until a professional pilot could assume control. Other passengers participated in subduing the assailant, while Dr. Shota Musaev provided medical assistance to the wounded captain.
It is important not to manufacture a legend where the established facts are already powerful enough.
We do not yet know precisely which actions by each individual will ultimately be recorded in the official investigation.
But what has already been established presents a remarkable picture of human solidarity.
One person restrains the attacker.
Another attempts to stabilise the aircraft.
A third provides medical assistance.
Someone warns the others.
Someone helps restrain the aggressor.
And then qualified pilots aboard the aircraft assume control.
Under ordinary circumstances, these people might never have met.
A few minutes aboard FZ1073 transformed them into a single team.
There is another dimension to this story that deserves particular emphasis.
The captain was Indian.
The passengers who came to his assistance were Israeli.
Other professional pilots subsequently assumed control of the aircraft.
Differences of nationality disappeared before the elementary moral imperative:
to save human lives.
This is one of the most powerful aspects of the entire story.
Terrorism divides.
Resistance to terrorism unites.
VI. THE AIRCRAFT DID NOT CRASH
Once the attacker had been subdued, the immediate danger was not yet over.
The aircraft still had to be brought under stable control.
Its condition had to be assessed.
A suitable airport for an emergency landing had to be identified.
Ultimately, FZ1073 made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. According to published accounts, an off-duty pilot aboard the aircraft assumed control after the critical phase; other reports refer to two off-duty pilots participating in the subsequent actions.
The aircraft reached the ground.
The passengers emerged.
The catastrophe did not occur.
Yet those final words can create a dangerously misleading impression.
“The catastrophe did not occur.”
When tragedy is prevented, society has a dangerous tendency to relax very quickly.
But the absence of catastrophe does not mean the absence of danger.
On the contrary.
Sometimes a catastrophe narrowly averted tells us considerably more about the condition of a security system than a tragedy that can no longer be undone.
VII. WHO IS HAMAM AL-HAMMAMI?
Following the incident, attention turned to the background of the suspect.
And here extremely serious questions arise.
According to published reports citing sources familiar with the investigation, al-Hammami had previously worked for Oman Air but had allegedly been removed from flying duties because of concerns regarding extremist views and transferred to an administrative position. He subsequently joined flydubai.
If this information is ultimately confirmed by the investigation, the aviation industry will face a question of enormous significance:
How was information concerning the potential radicalisation of a professional pilot communicated—or not communicated—between states and airlines?
This is no longer merely a question about the biography of one individual.
It is a question about the architecture of international security.
Aviation is inherently transnational.
A pilot may be born in one country.
Educated in another.
Trained in a third.
Employed in a fourth.
And fly into a fifth.
Consequently, a system for screening aviation personnel cannot function effectively within exclusively national information boundaries.
VIII. WHAT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED—AND WHAT HAS NOT
At this point, legal precision is particularly important.
The UAE authorities have officially characterised the incident as an attempted terrorist act.
At the same time, the investigation continues.
The suspect's motives are being examined.
Possible contacts are being examined.
His professional history is being examined.
The procedures through which he was cleared to fly are being examined.
Possible radicalisation is being examined.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred publicly to the suspect's “Islamist radicalisation”; however, public reporting has also noted that, at the time of publication, evidence substantiating that particular assertion had not yet been publicly presented.
This distinction must be preserved.
The struggle against terrorism becomes stronger, not weaker, when it rests upon evidence.
There is no need to exaggerate real events.
The events aboard FZ1073 are grave enough in themselves.
IX. ISLAMIST TERRORISM HAS NOT DISAPPEARED
And here we arrive at the central question.
After decades of struggle against international terrorism, a perception has emerged in parts of Western society that the most dangerous era has already passed.
The first years after 11 September receded into history.
Political agendas changed.
Wars changed.
Governments changed.
New global crises emerged.
But a terrorist ideology does not disappear simply because it receives fewer headlines.
The threat of Islamist terrorism has not disappeared.
Yet an absolutely essential distinction must be maintained.
Islam is a world religion practised across vast and diverse societies.
Islamist extremism is a political and ideological form of radicalisation capable of employing religious rhetoric to justify violence.
Conflating these concepts is not merely unjust.
It is detrimental to the struggle against terrorism itself.
Millions of Muslims have themselves been, and continue to be, victims of terrorism.
The adversary of a free society is therefore neither a religion nor a nationality.
The adversary is an ideology that legitimises terror, murder, and violence.
X. VIGILANCE IS NOT PARANOIA
After terrorist attacks, an inevitably difficult question arises:
How can society remain vigilant without transforming itself into a realm of universal suspicion?
The answer lies in understanding what vigilance actually means.
Vigilance does not mean suspecting a person because of his surname.
Not because of his citizenship.
Not because of his origins.
Not because of his language.
Not because of his religion.
Real security is built upon conduct, verifiable information, professional risk assessment, and institutional responsibility.
If a professional pilot had indeed previously been removed from flying duties because of concerns relating to extremist views, that specific information should have become the subject of serious scrutiny in any subsequent employment process.
Not his nationality.
Not his origins.
Not his religion.
But concrete information concerning a concrete risk.
It is precisely this distinction that separates a professional counter-terrorism system from prejudice.
XI. THE INSIDER THREAT
FZ1073 brings us back to one of the most difficult questions in modern security: the insider threat.
The traditional security model establishes a perimeter.
Potential threats are outside.
Trusted individuals are inside.
But every system becomes vulnerable when a person to whom it has already granted access becomes the source of danger.
In aviation, the consequences are especially profound.
A pilot is entrusted with privileges that cannot be granted to an ordinary passenger.
Access to the cockpit.
Access to the flight controls.
Professional knowledge of the aircraft.
Knowledge of procedures.
Knowledge of security systems.
For precisely this reason, the screening of aviation personnel cannot end on the day they are employed.
It must constitute a reasonable and lawful process of continuing professional assessment.
The FZ1073 incident has already raised questions about existing models of cockpit protection: a reinforced door can provide excellent protection against external intrusion while simultaneously complicating intervention when the source of danger is already inside.
This is a security paradox of the twenty-first century.
A measure designed to protect against one threat may create vulnerability to another.
XII. THE HUMAN FACTOR SAVED THE SYSTEM
Technology is extraordinarily important.
But FZ1073 reminds us of something else.
When formal mechanisms prove insufficient, the final line of defence remains the human being.
The captain resisted.
He opened the door.
The passengers entered.
The attacker was subdued.
Someone helped maintain control.
A doctor treated the wounded captain.
Other pilots took command of the aircraft.
This sequence of actions appears almost extraordinary.
Remove a single link from that chain, and the outcome might have been entirely different.
For this reason, the survival of FZ1073 cannot be reduced to the actions of one individual, however extraordinary those actions may have been.
It was a chain of courage.
But the first critically important link in that chain was the captain.
XIII. SMIT MACHCHHAR: PROFESSION AS A MORAL OBLIGATION
We often use the word “hero” too easily.
In this case, the word has literal substance.
Heroism does not consist in the absence of fear.
It consists in acting despite fear, pain, and an immediate threat to one's own life.
Smit Machchhar understood that if he ceased resisting, the consequences could affect everyone behind him.
His body was wounded.
But his professional consciousness continued to function.
Open the door.
Call for help.
Do not allow the aircraft to perish.
Within these simple actions lay the fate of the flight.
The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, subsequently spoke with the captain, while Indian and Israeli leaders publicly praised his actions. International reporting described him as a man whose resistance helped save those aboard.
Yet the most powerful assessment of his actions is not contained in the words of politicians.
It is contained in a fact:
the aircraft landed.
XIV. COURAGE HAS NO NATIONALITY
There is another lesson in this story that must not be lost amid political debate.
An Indian captain was saving Israeli passengers.
Israeli passengers were saving an Indian captain.
A doctor was treating a man of another nationality.
Other pilots were assuming control of an aircraft carrying people from different countries.
At the moment of mortal danger, these differences ceased to matter.
This is perhaps the most compelling answer to terrorist ideology.
Terrorism attempts to divide humanity into “us” and “them.”
But thousands of metres above the earth, everyone enclosed within the metal fuselage of that aircraft was simply human.
They had one fate.
One aircraft.
One threat.
And one task:
to survive together.
XV. WHAT IT MEANS TO “REMAIN ON GUARD”
The phrase “we must remain on guard” may sound martial.
Its proper meaning, however, is considerably deeper.
To remain on guard means refusing to ignore warning signs.
To remain on guard means ensuring the exchange of reliable information between states.
To remain on guard means professionally screening those granted access to critical infrastructure.
To remain on guard means training crews to respond to internal threats.
To remain on guard means maintaining procedures designed not only for yesterday's terrorist scenario, but for tomorrow's as well.
To remain on guard means refusing to allow political discomfort to prevent the discussion of genuine risks.
But at the same time, it means refusing to allow fear to become collective suspicion directed at millions of innocent people.
Vigilance must be precise.
Precision is what makes vigilance strong.
XVI. TERRORISM CHANGES ITS FORM
One of society's greatest mistakes is preparing exclusively for the last war.
After aircraft hijackings, passenger controls were strengthened.
After the use of explosives, screening procedures changed.
After 11 September, cockpit doors were reinforced.
Each measure was a response to an already known method of attack.
But an adversary studies the system.
Searches for ways around it.
Uses new technologies.
Looks for human weaknesses.
Exploits legitimate access.
For this reason, security must be a process, not a set of rules established once and assumed to be permanent.
FZ1073 demonstrates how destructive a potential internal source of danger can become.
XVII. THE NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE
If reports concerning earlier concerns about al-Hammami are ultimately confirmed, several questions will require answers.
Who possessed that information?
When did it emerge?
Was it documented?
Was it communicated to other airlines?
Could flydubai lawfully have obtained it?
What screening was conducted when the pilot was employed?
What international rules govern the transmission of such information?
Where does the protection of personal data end, and where does the duty to prevent a threat to hundreds of human lives begin?
These are extraordinarily difficult legal questions.
But complexity does not relieve governments or the aviation industry of the responsibility to seek answers.
XVIII. A LESSON FOR EUROPE
Europe, too, should study this incident carefully.
The European security model is simultaneously founded upon openness, freedom of movement, privacy, and fundamental rights.
All these values must be preserved.
But a democratic state also has a fundamental obligation to protect life.
These principles are not mutually exclusive.
A state governed by the rule of law can be both free and vigilant.
It can combat radicalisation without persecuting religion.
It can investigate threats without imposing collective responsibility.
It can analyse extremist conduct without transforming a person's origins into evidence of guilt.
Europe needs precisely such a model.
XIX. A LESSON FOR AVIATION
Following FZ1073, the aviation industry must ask itself uncomfortable questions.
Are today's mechanisms for the international screening of pilots sufficient?
How is information about serious professional and security risks transmitted?
What happens if a pilot is removed from flying duties in one jurisdiction and subsequently seeks employment in another?
What procedures exist if one member of a flight crew attacks another?
How can a reinforced cockpit be opened from outside if the lawful commander is physically incapable of doing so?
And how can this be achieved without creating a new opportunity for terrorist intrusion?
There are no simple answers.
But the absence of a simple answer must never become an excuse for failing to confront the problem.
XX. NOT FEAR, BUT PREPAREDNESS
Terrorism seeks more than physical destruction.
Its psychological objective is fear.
For this reason, the proper response to terrorism cannot be permanent fear.
The response must be preparedness.
Fear paralyses.
Preparedness organises.
Fear encourages suspicion of everyone.
Preparedness teaches us to recognise genuine danger.
Fear destroys society from within.
Preparedness makes society resilient.
This is precisely what the people aboard FZ1073 demonstrated.
They did not know beforehand what they would be required to do.
But when the critical moment came, they acted.
XXI. MEMORY AS AN ELEMENT OF SECURITY
Society has a short memory.
After every major terrorist attack, the words are spoken:
“We will never forget.”
Time passes.
The threat recedes from the headlines.
Generations change.
Procedures become routine.
Vigilance begins to appear bureaucratic.
And it is precisely at that moment that complacency becomes dangerous.
To remember does not mean to live in the past.
To remember means to preserve experience acquired at the cost of human lives.
The history of aviation terrorism demonstrates with particular clarity how dearly humanity pays for every newly discovered vulnerability.
Memory is therefore not merely a moral category.
Memory is an element of security.
XXII. VIGILANCE MUST NEVER FADE
From this follows the central thesis of this publication:
VIGILANCE MUST NEVER FADE.
Not because we should live in fear.
But because freedom requires protection.
Not because every stranger is a potential enemy.
But because genuine threats must be recognised before they become tragedies.
Not because terrorism belongs to any one nationality.
But because extremist ideology can cross national borders.
And not because society should abandon trust.
But because trust without mechanisms of verification can become a vulnerability.
XXIII. THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM HAS NOT DISAPPEARED
It must be stated plainly:
THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM HAS NOT DISAPPEARED.
But it must be confronted precisely as an extremist ideology and terrorist practice—not as a religion.
This distinction is not a matter of semantics.
It is a matter of legal precision.
When we define the adversary accurately, we become more effective in resisting it.
A terrorist is a person who chooses terrorism.
An extremist network is a structure that promotes, facilitates, or organises violence.
Radicalisation is a process that must be identified and prevented.
And millions of law-abiding Muslims must not become objects of collective suspicion because of the crimes of radicals.
A strong state is capable both of protecting its citizens from terrorism and of protecting innocent people from unjust accusation.
That is precisely where the strength of law resides.
XXIV. WE MUST BE PREPARED
What does it mean to “be prepared”?
Not vigilantism.
Not hatred.
Not the persecution of people from another culture.
And certainly not private armed confrontation where trained public authorities should act.
For civil society, preparedness means something else:
recognising immediate danger;
reporting concrete threats to the competent authorities;
knowing how to behave in an emergency;
following lawful instructions from crew members and security services;
refusing to spread unverified rumours;
and refusing to remain indifferent when human life is genuinely in danger.
For the state, preparedness means professional intelligence work, counter-terrorism, information exchange, screening of personnel with access to critical infrastructure, and the capacity to learn from catastrophes that were narrowly prevented.
XXV. CONCLUSION: THE AIRCRAFT THAT HAD TO LAND
The story of FZ1073 could have ended very differently.
Today, we might have known this flight number as the designation of yet another terrible aviation disaster.
We might have been reading lists of the dead.
We might have been looking at photographs of relatives waiting in airports.
We might have been asking why no one stopped what was happening.
But history followed another course.
Because the gravely wounded Captain Smit Machchhar did not surrender.
Because he managed to open the door.
Because the passengers and crew refused to remain passive.
Because Yaniv Hayun and other Israelis nearby intervened.
Because Dr. Shota Musaev provided assistance to the wounded captain.
Because professional pilots took control.
Because, at the critical moment, human beings acted.
And the aircraft landed.
Perhaps this is the most important lesson of FZ1073.
Security never exists by itself.
It is created every day.
Through professionalism.
Responsibility.
Information.
Preparedness.
Courage.
And vigilance.
We must never allow the memory of terrorism to become hatred directed against entire peoples or religions.
But it is equally dangerous to allow fear of uncomfortable words to compel society to deny the existence of a genuine extremist threat.
A free society must be capable of doing both at once:
refusing to accuse the innocent while refusing to close its eyes to danger.
The events aboard Flight FZ1073 will continue to be investigated.
The motive will be examined.
The suspect's background and the circumstances of his employment will be scrutinised.
Investigators will determine whether any links to extremist organisations existed or whether he acted independently.
For this reason, a final historical judgment would be premature.
But one conclusion can already be drawn.
Human lives were saved because, at the moment of extreme danger, there were people who refused to remain passive witnesses.
An Indian captain.
Israeli passengers.
A medical professional.
Crew members.
Pilots.
People from different countries who happened to find themselves aboard the same aircraft.
In the face of terrorism, what united them was not their origin.
What united them was life.
That is why the memory of Flight FZ1073 should above all be a memory of resistance.
Of professional duty.
Of mutual assistance.
Of human dignity.
And of vigilance.
WE REMEMBER.
WE REMAIN VIGILANT.
WE WILL NOT ALLOW TERROR TO DEFINE OUR LIVES.
And at the same time, we must understand clearly:
THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM HAS NOT DISAPPEARED.
Our position must therefore be firm but lawful; resolute but free from collective hatred; uncompromising towards terrorism but just towards the individual.
That is the true meaning of vigilance.
Not to fear everyone.
But to recognise genuine danger.
Not to search for an enemy in every human being.
But to be prepared to stop the person who genuinely chooses terror.
Not to live in fear.
But to protect life.
And if history should ever again confront people with the choice faced aboard FZ1073, the example of Captain Smit Machchhar and the passengers of that flight should remind us:
courage is sometimes measured in seconds;
responsibility, in a single decision;
and between catastrophe and survival there may sometimes stand only one human being who, despite his own wounds, continues to fight for everyone else.
